


Split Screen

by Serai



Series: High Contrast [22]
Category: The Faculty (1998)
Genre: Bondage, Desire, Feeling Trapped, M/M, Obsession, Oral Sex, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-17 00:15:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4645302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serai/pseuds/Serai





	Split Screen

.  
Casey sits on the top step of the back porch, staring at the light snow covering the back yard. He'll be called in to dinner soon, but for now the last snowfall of the season gives him an excuse to retreat to the cold and the solitude. 

He holds an envelope in his hands, already opened, and turns it over and over. His fingers are chilled and stiffening but they keep repeating the movement – over and over, face up, face down. He looks at the sparkling white without seeing it. He sees nothing before him, only what's behind him, what's past. What's before him yawns open, uncertain, waiting on his word.

Turning, turning, over and over. Face up, face down. Snow. Shadow. White, white snow.

 

... --- ...

 

Zeke’s never believed in heartbreak. Loss of control only leads to trouble, and he can’t be bothered with trouble. People think he’s cold, and they’re right. He stays cold so when the heat comes, he knows how to use it. _Self-preservation begins with “self”,_ as one of his asshole stepfather’s speeches began. Maybe what people call their “heart” doesn’t even exist, is just an expression for something that only comes into being when the pain of separation feels like a beating, or a murder. He won’t give in to that. What heart he has is his own, and he refuses to attach.

Which is why lying in the dark unable to sleep for the thought of his lover’s skin, his body, his oceanic eyes, is something he has no idea how to manage. Breathing deep doesn’t work, jerking off doesn’t help. Cold showers only delay the inevitable, and he's not stupid enough to put his fist through a wall or a window - yet.

_Stop it, stop it, stop it. Whatever you’re doing, please just stop. I can’t take this. I don’t know how to take this. Please. Stop._

 

... --- ...

 

Sometimes, late at night, Casey’s heart begins to hurt. It’s not an emotional thing. It’s an actual pain, like a steel hand reaching into his chest and squeezing. It never goes very far, but it scares him just the same. It usually happens a day or two after he’s seen Zeke, but that can’t have anything to do with it. _Hearts aren’t the seat of emotion. We only think they are because of the Romans,_ he reminds himself. Then why has it turned out to be true that there are feelings that can stop his heart? He’d never quite bought that idea, until the first time Zeke had taken him in his mouth.

 

 _Casey’s panicking, tears spilling over as he bucks against the handcuffs. Zeke is looking at him with that fascinated stare he gets at the sight of something unexpected, something_ interesting _. He shakes his head and answers “No” every time Casey begs him to remove the cuffs. But he moves closer each time, too, and ends up with his arms wrapped around him._

_”Shh,” he whispers into Casey’s ear, and takes hold of his wrists, pulling his skin back from the cutting metal. “Breathe, buddy,” he murmurs, “just breathe.” He holds the struggling body close, but Casey can’t stop crying, the terror grown too huge. As a last resort, Zeke kisses him, the same slow, deliberate movement he used the first time they touched. He turns Casey to lower him onto the bed, sliding onto him to try to still him with his weight. Casey turns his head and begs into Zeke’s ear, “Please.”_

_“Shh. I put these cuffs on you, Casey,” Zeke says, “because if I’m going to do this right,” and he runs his mouth down Casey’s jaw and over the soft hot skin of his neck, then back to his ear, “I’m going to need my hands free.” Zeke tentatively loosens his grip on one arm. “Can I let go?” He kisses the gasping mouth, teasing him with his tongue. Casey manages to stop struggling somehow but remains tensed, tight. “Because I really want to,” Zeke breathes, and Casey shivers. Zeke releases both hands and runs his own down the damp torso, his mouth following. Hot, slick, wet, and Casey struggles to cry out_ please _once more. Then Zeke’s mouth, his lips, his tongue, reach their destination, and Casey's nerves scream and he thrusts into that heat and oh_ GOD…

 

That was when he knew he was lost, well and truly taken. His heart had _ached_ , as if he’d been punched in the chest. He’d ridden the wave so hard he’d almost blacked out, and by the end of that orgasm he couldn’t refuse anything. From that moment, all he's wanted is in those golden eyes and that mouth, that mouth, that fucking mouth. He’ll do anything, anything at all, if Zeke will just keep doing that to him with that fucking mouth.

 

... --- ...

 

Zeke drives up to the lake one afternoon after school and parks near a stand of sycamores. He rests his arms and head on the steering wheel, and looks out over the water. The rippling light’s always calmed him, but now it only makes him dizzy, and he closes his eyes. There in the darkness he sees Casey laid out inviting, reaching to him from the crumpled sheets, sleepy eyes and moonlit skin, and _fucking hell_ …

“Fuck!” he shouts, and punches the wheel. He never wanted to be trapped like this, and now here he is, and he’s the one cuffed, unable to look away. He rubs his face with his hands, trying to escape the images, but he can’t do it. Casey rides him like a ghost, like one of those Caribbean gods, wrapped around him like some sea creature, Zeke caught in his eyes and his mouth and his sleek limbs. How ironic is that? The outsider, the one they all want, the one none of them will admit to wanting, caught by the little punching bag, the one nobody would suspect, the one nobody would even consider. It'd be funny if it weren’t for the sleepless nights, and the sense of falling, and the constant, tiny, gnawing fear, the fear he can’t see, the fear he refuses to acknowledge.

 

... --- ...

 

 _This won’t last,_ Casey tells himself. _You know it won’t. He’ll wake up one day. One day soon, once school is over and the walls aren’t there to give this…thing…its shape. He’ll wake up and look at you and wonder what came over him. He’ll grow cold and pull away and you’ll be left alone._

That’s what he can’t stand, the knowledge that he’ll be _left._ Left behind, left alone, left to die. It’s stupid and melodramatic, but it’s the truth. No power, no say, just a heart to shove aside and break. It started as just a game, and it’ll end as just a memory.

The envelope turns in his hands. Over and over. Face up, face down.

But he has a say. He has power. He’s seen it. Every now and then, he sees it in Zeke’s eyes, a moment where he can assert his will, take control. Still though, when Zeke yields it’s a conscious choice, never forced out of him. Casey wonders whether he's ever had anything forced out of him, whether anyone has ever owned him to that extent. He knows he must have – he’s heard the story of Zeke's first day at high school, his mother dropping him off at the expensive academy, and how despite her sad smile, or maybe because of it, her son knew it was the end, something in him certain they’d never share a roof again. How he’d lain in bed that night and felt himself turn to stone, at just fifteen knowing the one thing he needed to know: that he could count on no one, not even the ones who loved him. It’s a lesson Casey’s always resisted - he doesn't _want_ to be aloof, cold, a tough loner - but he thinks he might be ready for it now. Even if he isn't, it's barreling down on him anyway. He can either take control or be crushed.

Face up, face down. Casey looks at the seal on the corner of the envelope and makes his decision.  
.


End file.
